


your friends are the angriest people on earth and one of them climbs trees

by whytho



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, I DID IT AGAIN WHYY, M/M, and max is literally the stubbornest person on earth, is this too much fanfic for two days? yeah probably, kinda shippy maybe?? like you can view it that way, max also plays the clarinet txt it, same max, there is also more jang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whytho/pseuds/whytho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>max climbs trees and contains a lot of rage. stephen doesn't deserve this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your friends are the angriest people on earth and one of them climbs trees

**Author's Note:**

> i did it again... whyy.... please send help... or don't actually cause you don't know me. i hope you don't know me. that'd be embarrassing. oh! i forgot to mention how heavily this is based off speedingbullet's max-is-tiny-and-parkours-stuff au. go look it up

Stephen used to think that Johnny was automatically the angriest person in the room at all times. He now realized that Maxwell Puckett, the boy that lived life as passive-aggressively as possible, had Johnny beat by a long shot. 

When Johnny began including the new kid in their ‘mad group hangs’, Stephen was expecting more snark between the two than size jokes. And yet, somehow, Johnny was consistently talking about how little Max was more and more. They ended up here quite a lot: with Johnny holding Max’s cap above his head and laughing, Max jumping up and down trying to reach it. He was frowning a little, a pout that could pass as both cute and deadly. 

“Come on, Johnny,” he said, making an utterly terrifying face that Johnny probably found adorable. 

Johnny laughed harder, eyes crinkling up at the edges. Max scowled up at him for a few seconds before appearing to make up his mind. Stephen braced himself for another spat and/or video game battle.

Instead, Max smiled, almost sweetly, and folded his hands in front of his body. “Johnny,” he said, voice level. “Can I go get some juice?”

Johnny paused, rewinded, and stopped the tape at a part that was confused. “Uh, sure, but don’t’cha… want your hat back?”

Max smiled again, said, “No, you can hold it until I get back,” and left. 

The room was frozen for a few seconds, apart from the explosion noises on RJ’s video game. Everything was silent, until Ollie said what was on all their minds.

“He’s planning something.”

In a mass of flailing limbs, they tried to rush out of the room before the new kid painted the kitchen walls with jelly or something. Johnny, however, blocked the doorway before they could make it out.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What if he’s just, like... gettin’ some juice?” he said, eyebrows narrowing.

With all the patience he had in his body, Stephen asked, calmly and professionally, “What?”

“I mean, he’s really small, right? And he was jumpin’ around a lot. He probably needs a lot of food to keep his body runnin’. He could just be gettin’ juice.”

The J-Gang looked at each other. And then they promptly burst past Johnny and into the hall. 

Their sprint to the kitchen couldn’t have lasted more than four seconds, but Stephen did a lot of worrying in those four seconds. What if Max had light the sink on fire? He could have started sprayed water all over the room, or left the milk out on the counter to spoil it. You never knew with kids from other towns; they were wild cards. And there was a lot of stuff a wild card could ruin in a kitchen. 

And yet when the J Squadron fell into the kitchen, they were not greeted by the sight of the new kid mixing bottles of soda together. Max was instead perched on top of the fridge, juice box in hand and stormy expression in place. 

Johnny climbed out of the pile and rose to his feet. “Uh, hey, Max.”

Max said nothing. 

“Is this about the whole, uh, holdin’ stuff above your head thing? Cause I can give you your hat back, if you’d like. I mean, it’s not that… big… of a deal...”

Max blinked at him, hard and slow. Johnny proceeded to attempt more conversation, and Max did not leave the top of the fridge until three hours later. 

Most of the school despaired over the fight. Random sixth graders tried to give Johnny consolatory ice cream. The weird ginger anime kid could be found crying softly in the corner during most of his classes. The school newspaper made an obituary for Johnny and Max’s relationship.  


The climbing-on-stuff continued for the rest of the week. 

At lunch on Tuesday, Max could be seen on a low part of the ceiling in the cafeteria, until one of the lunch ladies yelled him off. In band class, he was playing the clarinet from on top of the supply cupboard. Afterschool, you could find him climbing through trees to get away from Johnny. On Thursday, he sat on top of Mr. Garcia’s head. (Stephen desperately wanted to know the dirt he had that let him get away with it, but Maxwell Puckett was a child that kept his secrets.)

By Friday, the ROS was ready to talk with Johnny.

“Look, man,” Stephen said, sitting him down very gently at their Social Studies table. “I get that you wanna ride out Max’s whole parkouring-away-from-his-problems thing, but you’ve gotta talk to the guy.”

“Talk to Max?” Johnny asked, jutting out his jaw.

Ollie sighed, and RJ began to pat Johnny’s arm in desperation. Stephen knew that Johnny and Max were stubborn, but he didn’t think they’d be this stubborn. It was one thing to climb to the top of a fridge a couple of times when you were mad, but vaulting over several people to get away from someone? That was something else. 

“Look,” Johnny began, shoulders starting to slump, “I- uh, I know that Max is angry and all. But, like- it’s not like he’s gonna stop talking to me forever, right? He’s not… the sorta person that’d do that, y’know?”

RJ patted Johnny’s arm harder. Ollie frowned some more in quiet resignation, then spoke up. 

“Johnny, I don’t know if you know this, but Max is probably angrier right now than you’ve ever been. Making fun of a person’s height- that makes people mad. Especially when they’re kind of… short.” Ollie fell silent, probably thinking about the time Stephen mentioned RJ’s height and they pummeled him at basketball. It was what Stephen was remembering. 

Johnny was quiet for a few seconds. Hands clenched on his thighs, he stood and left the classroom. 

Stephen and the others stared after him. In a quiet voice, RJ asked, “Do you think they’re actually gonna talk to each other?”

Stephen side-eyed them. “Yeah,” he said, “but we should probably give them a few minutes.”

When the three of them left the Social Studies room (seriously, why was Mr. Spender letting them leave the room eight minutes before class ended?), they saw Max, hanging off the top of the lockers, talking to Johnny. And Johnny standing in front of him, talking back. RJ pulled in a short, quick breathe. 

Johnny was blushing, hands in his pockets in an effort to look cool. Arms crossed over his chest, Max didn’t seem to notice. He griped at Johnny about something, defensive, as the other smiled tentatively. 

Stephen gave up and dragged RJ and Ollie back into the classroom for seven minutes of Spender-scoldings. It was probably best to leave before the two of them started kissing or talking about their feelings or did something equally gross.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so Spender totally ships bullymagnet and that is why he let Johnny and his men out of class. he also proofreads the fanfic Isaac writes in case you were wondering
> 
> Max plays the clarinet. he is in band class. the j-squad is also in band class. Ollie plays the french horn, Stephen is the only trombone and he rocks, johnny is a tuba (imagine), and RJ conducts. RJ is a prodigy child conductor and amazes everyone. i don't know where i'm going with this but i have written fic for it this is my life now please h e l p
> 
> okay rj is my life tho I have so many rj hc's and you should hear all of them:  
> 1) if johnny and the J's start hanging out at max's RJ most definitely becomes friends with dad puckett and zoey. like they will go to max's house and max will not be there and they'll just go "okay" and then hang with Dad P and Little P.  
> 2) they play basketball and also softball. one time in dodgeball they dribbled a ball and then pitched it at someone and the crowd went wild.  
> 3) they can do anything in heels. basketball? heels. softball? heels. threatening people? heels. zoey comes to them for advice on how to do it and they're just like ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ soz kid  
> 4) their hair is wild, man. some days it will mohawk all on its own and some days it will fall to one side and some days it will fall to both sides and some days it will just. be indescribable. nobody knows this tho because the hair is always covered by their hoods.


End file.
